StirCrazy wrote:A little more background on this. The factory Jaboni system consisted of one 300 watt panel and a 30 amp controller. That controller is supposed to be able to handle 550 watts and 45 volts. My intial upgrade was the two Aims panels which came in just under what the Jaboni is supposed to be capable of.... However in practice the Jaboni will not do it. It keeps defaulting to float at peak sunlight time, even though the batteries are at 50%. After much discussion with Jaboni, I am throwing in the towel and moving on. This is why I am doing two seperate systems. The Jaboni works fine in factory configuration, so there is no point in throwing it away.Huntindog wrote:
Plans are well underway to expand the Solar on my 398M.
I have 4 more Aims 120 watt panels to add to the two I already have.
The plan is to return the Jaboni back to it's factory stock configuration, of one 300 watt panel as it works properly like that. I will run the 6 Aims 120 watt panels as a seperate system. Two series strings of 3 panels, with an easy option of being able to add one more string of three.
I have the Victron 250/100 controller for the new Aims array. This system would total 1020 watts expandable to 1380 watts with ease.
I have one question. The easiest way to run the wiring from the roof is to use the sattelite dish wiring channel. I already have the coaxial cable for the dish and the control cable running thru it. There are two empty slots in the roof plate for the dish. I am considering just running the new array wires thru these slots terminating them on the roof with short cables capped with MC4 connectors. Which would then have 2 into 1 MC4 connectors plugged in, and the two Aims strings plugged into those. My question is on the roof penetration method. Conventional method is to use a gland. That would up the difficulty level a lot. (new hole in roof, likely a different location etc) I can not see any downsides to my proposed method.
What are the thoughts on this?
if there is already two pannels installed, I would just add the 4 so that you have two runs of 3 in series. you may be looking at a different controler than what you presently have to do it, but you wouldnt be running any more cables from the roof down.
Steve
